Letters to Michael:   Guatemala, April 17, 2012

Dearest Michael it is just two days since leaving the hospital without you.   Page and I are getting into some sort of routine at the hotel.  I sleep no more than 2-3 hours.   Then, we get up early to get back on the internet to make arrangements for your Celebration of Life Ceremony and tie up loose ends back in the States.  Yesterday, we went to the American Embassy and got twenty copies of your death certificate.  They took your passport and marked it cancelled and gave it back to me.  I guess with a cancelled passport and death certificates this must all be real.    I want to get out of Guatemala as soon as possible and it looks really good for us to leave in the morning.  My emotions run the gamut from impossible sadness to numbness that I can’t understand.  I feel strong and stoic one minute and ready to crawl under the covers and just lie there for days.  I can’t do any of this.   I am wondering about the adrenalin coursing through my veins and this pain in my heart; it is real pain, or just a broken heart?  But I can’t say anything to Page because I can’t worry our pregnant daughter. All these chemicals surging through me keep me from relaxing.  I just can’t sit still and I can’t eat very much without it sticking in my throat.  I am tired but have more energy than any time in my life.  

But mostly I am angry with you for not contacting me yet.  I can’t help it I want a sign of some sort that you are with me in spirit at least.  I keep waiting for something, anything, just a sign that you are here with me.  All I have is dead silence.  All my other widow friends told me their spouses contacted them in some way and I expect you to do the same.  It is like when you were alive and wouldn’t turn on your cell phone.  You told me, “I only use it for emergencies, to call you or to tell you when I am on my way home.”   I think you hated to leave it on for fear the battery would run down and you wouldn’t have it when you wanted to use it.  However, my cell phone was always on and you could contact me anytime!  So this is what it feels like, you not leaving your cell phone on for me to contact you.  I keep thinking, “Okay Michael, anytime, get in touch, I am here waiting!”

Page and I decided that since we had accomplished everything we could from a distance it was time to take a few hours off, get out of the confines of the hotel, and go have a little bit of fun.  However, we needed to be back in the city by 4 pm to pick up your ashes. But, until then, we had the whole day with endless hours with nothing to do.  So we hired a car and decided to go to Antiqua where we stayed for two nights.  I needed to return to show Page the charming old city and I wanted her to see our hotel, and thank the wonderful people at the Euro Maya for helping me during your hospitalization.  I think I wanted to be back in the place where you were last a live, reading the paper on your Kindle, and practicing Spanish with the front desk guy.  Did you know his name is Angel?  Michael, you didn’t know that you were conversing in Spanish with an Angel!

We were picked up promptly at 8:30 am, but because of protests and traffic, we nearly had to turn the car around and go back to the hotel.  Luckily, our driver was cleaver and kept trying different streets and alley-ways to get us to our destination.  We were stuck, multiple times, on narrow one lane roads with Chicken buses and other travelers, beeping and waving their arms, in an effort to find a good passage to the same destination.  At one point the driver turned on the radio.  Thankfully it was a classical station, and seeing that we were going nowhere fast, we both settled back into our seats preparing for a long ride to Antiqua. 

Several hours ago, Page and I had been trying to come up with titles to music to play at your memorial.  It was a struggle for me to remember anything you liked.  Then, as if you finally were in contact, the music from the radio played one appropriate song after another in perfect rhythm to match my emotions and the music for your memorial.  The first one was “Smile, though your heart is breaking.”  Now come on Michael, how am I supposed to accomplish that I wondered?”  I scrambled for scrap paper and a pen, tears running down my face, and began to write it all down.  However, the one song that I knew you loved didn’t come through.   I said to Page, “Remind me that I still need to find out that song Michael loved to listen to while sunbathing in our front yard.  It is a Brightman-Bocelli song and I can’t remember the title.  We’ll need to look that one up when we get back to the computer at the hotel.”   It took longer than usual to get to Antiqua but I didn’t mind because I hoped it was you contacting us and sending us messages through the radio.  I don’t normally believe in those things, any more than you did when you were alive, but a broken heart can make you believe just about anything that brings comfort. 

Page and I did have a lovely day touring just a portion of the large antique city. We ate good food, and got in some shopping therapy.  I got to give Angel a hug, and the wonderful woman, who cooked us breakfast every morning, and I shared some tears.  It wasn’t long before we settled back into the car in the afternoon for the long drive back into the Guatemala City.   As we got closer to the hotel and time to pick up your Ashes (do you capitalize Ashes if it is a person?) I asked Page to remind me again to look up that Brightman-Bocelle song.  Then, not more than one song later (I swear this is all true) the song “Time to Say Good Bye” came on.  We couldn’t help but believe you were still contacting us.  With that message in mind I handed Page the card for the funeral home and said, “Please ask the driver to take us there, we have him for the day, and I just can’t go back to the hotel without picking Michael up first.”  Luckily, the driver stopped for gas and Page showed him the card and explained our situation.  Without hesitation he agreed to honor our request.  So I sat back, as deeply as I could, into the seat, wishing the seat would swallow me.  I wanted to suspend reality and just close my eyes.  I was dreading this part of the journey and wishing that the reality of your passing was not really true.  Having your Ashes in my arms was going to be the final reality check.  When the driver pulled out of the gas station he turned the radio back on.  The first song we heard, “Dust in the Wind, All we are is Dust in the Wind!”  I was so shocked that I let out a yelp, punched Page in the arm (wishing I was punching you), and said out loud, “Okay, Michael I get it.”